Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3620 in DVD
• Released on: 2002-10-21
• Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: Dubbed, PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Dutch, French, Polish, Spanish
• Dubbed in: French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 90 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
A stylish sequel though inferior to its classic predecessor, Bill Condon's Candyman 2: Farewell to the Flesh deepens our knowledge of what made the murdered Daniel Robitaille turn into the monster that haunts dreams and mirrors. But some of it is still pretty routine: schoolteacher Annie takes a long time to connect her family's plantation-owning past and her own artistic talent with the legend, and is far too ready to say the Candyman's name five times in a mirror to debunk her pupils' fears.

The setting--New Orleans in Carnival time with a disc jockey whimsically reminding us that Carnival is the last farewell to pleasure before the rigours of Lent--and the atmospheric score by Philip Glass give the film some of its class. Tony Todd, who returns as the Candyman, gives the monstrous spectre with a hook for a hand a quiet dignity and sadness which impresses. His life was torn agonisingly from him and he is mad for vengeance, yet he has an artistic temperament and loved Annie's kinswoman Caroline. Condon captures an attractive elegiac tone in much of this, as well as moments of brutal horror.

On the DVD: Candyman 2 is presented in widescreen 1.78:1; there is an attractive crispness to the picture which does real justice to the film's impressive sense of place. The music score comes across well in Dolby Digital stereo. There is a theatrical trailer, but no other features. --Roz Kaveney

Special Features
English
Region 2

Synopsis
The mythical hook-handed Candyman (Tony Todd) returns in this sequel set in New Orleans' French Quarter during Mardi Gras. The Tarrants are an old-money family. When the father succumbs to the wicked vengeance of the mythical killer, daughter Annie (Kelly Rowan) studies everything she can about the legend of Candyman to empower herself so that she can defeat his undead evil.

Customer Reviews

A DECENT FOLLOW UP
As New Orleans is getting ready for Mardi Graus, art teacher Annie Tarrant, (Kelly Rowan) is worried that her brother Ethan, (William O'Leary) won't stay out of trouble long enough to help her long enough to find her missing father. As she begins looking back on her childhood to find answers, she comes into repeated contact with the legend of Daniel Robitaille, the Candyman, (Tony Todd) and she can't understand why. As more bodies pile up and she begins seeing the Candyman appearing at all the murder locations and even haunting her, she looks to the past to stop the madman.

The Good News: The "Candyman" series, I think, is actually pretty underrated, and this one is pretty good. The fact that this one goes back to his origins and explains his history a little more is a great feat, and one that was sorely needed after being introduced in part 1. It continues the storyline logically, and isn't a mere retread of part 1, which is also refreshing. The film also manages to capture the eeriness of the original with the amount of suspense in here. The general atmosphere surrounding the film is perfectly creepy, and a large part of that is the New Orleans setting. It has a built-in creep factor that gels quite nicely with the atmosphere that the first one fills. Mixing in with the atmosphere is a pretty brutal series of kills. People are slashed up with the hook in just and the deaths that accrue are nice and gory. From the stabbings in the back to being split open, it's a nice blood-soaked affair. The best part of this film is undoubtedly the last thirty minutes, as everything comes in and makes the film end on a complete high note. Everything from deaths and gore to jumps and suspense, it features everything that a film should do to wrap itself up. Not that the rest is bad, but the ending is great. It even sends the film out on a great jump that is pretty unexpected and works beautifully.

The Bad News: The pace to get started and get things going is one of the few things I can cite against. The reason for the storyline is the cause for it, but that's the way the story goes and is not the fault of anyone or anything else. That means that the beginning of the film is a little slow until the bodies start piling up and the visions come.

The Final Verdict: Get around a few slow scenes and this is a quite good entry in the series. The last half is a real bang-up job, and there is some gore spread throughout to keep you interested in it until then. Fans of the series will want to give it a shot, and those that enjoy a little more thought to their slashing will find some good stuff inside.

Praise is easily given, sweets for the sweet
Seems like everyone had gotten a bit over-excited!
As far as horror sequels go this is not a bad one, but seriously it's no lost gem either.
That said, it does have some things of note. It cleverly expands on the myth of the original (a far greater film!) ans, satisfyingly, gives Tony Todd loads more to do - he can actually act!! Bu the film lets itself down with ridiculous plot twists and a really, really annoying voice-over/radio D.j that grates immediately.
All in all, this is no horror show of a horror sequel (boom, boom!)and if you were a fan of the original it's worth punting a few quid on (A rental is only a pound or so more) but don't expect anything as good as the original, which i whole heartadly recommend by the way!

Come . . . Be Candyman's victim
Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh takes up the story of the Candyman legend and runs with it, giving us a much greater understanding of the man who would become the hook-gutting avenger of wronged souls; it offers a short and respectable summary of the first movie and then proceeds not to redo what has happened before but to carve its own name indelibly in the flesh of cinematic horror. I think this movie stands as a testament to proper sequel-making in the horror movie genre.

I love the opening sequence of this film. The smarmy academic professor who is an expert on the Candyman but does not believe in him (the same man who needled Helen as she worked on her project in the original movie) is speaking about his new book in a New Orleans bookstore. Naturally, he proves his disbelief by theatrically calling out Candyman's name five times in front of his own reflection. Let's just say he ends up a convert to the Candyman religion. Then we meet Annie Tarrant (Kelly Rowan), a devoted schoolteacher in a poor neighborhood of town. Her brother is accused of killing the lecturing professor, but Annie does not believe his own statements of guilt. She believes something about her father's death is responsible for her brother's unexplainable behavior. That death, we learn, precipitated an enduring tragedy in the Tarrant family. Annie's mother is dying of cancer and seems to be holding something back from her questioning daughter. Annie herself, foolishly trying to prove to her frightened students that Candyman isn't real, calls him, and then things really get ugly. People die, many of them Tarrants, and the Candyman seems to engage in some sort of romantic courtship of Annie. Tarrant family secrets are eventually revealed, and in the process we get a bird's-eye view of the suffering inflicted upon Daniel Robitaille a century earlier - for those who don't know, he was lynched for having loved a white woman; his right hand was cut off with a rusty blade, and then he was smeared with honey and left at the mercy (or lack of it) of a whole colony of angry bees.

By the end of the movie, Candyman is not some horrible monster bent on destruction just because he enjoys gutting people; he is quite real, and his humanity shines through the robes of gore he has wrapped himself in over the decades. If you saw off his hand, will he not jam a hook in the stub of his arm and start gutting people? If you scratch his face, will not hordes of bees pour forth from his body? I love Candyman; he really is one of the most complex, sympathetic yet disturbing "monsters" wandering the horror universe today. Much of the credit for his power must go to Tony Todd, who portrays him brilliantly. Maybe the ending of this movie leaves a little bit to be desired, but the journey features some pretty decent gore and a lot of almost philosophical horror ruminations. If you want to call Candyman, go ahead; he's real enough to me that I'm not going to do it.